Citi Ventures Comes To The Valley

Citi Chief Innovation Officer Deborah Hopkins moved from the East Coast to the Bay Area to tap into the start-up ecosystem.

After hiring a team of about two dozen Silicon Valley executives and investors over the last two years, the venture arm of Citigroup is ready to carry out its mandate–create, nurture and invest in start-ups that will bring strategic value to its corporate parent.

Corporate investments in start-ups have become popular again as part of the latest Internet boom, and corporate venture arms are flocking to Silicon Valley. Dell and American Express are two of the latest companies that have opened offices in the region as a way to tap into innovative early-stage companies.

Few of these corporate efforts, though, have shown the same urgency as Citi Ventures. Started in late 2006 and focused at first on Citi’s consumer banking division, its importance rose under Citigroup Chief Executive Vikram Pandit, who took over in December 2007, about a month after his predecessor, former CEO Charles Prince, resigned amid losses of billions of dollars in the subprime mortgage crisis.

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